Dragon Age II: How Badly Did It Sell?

August 13th, 2011, 10:35

So how much did the game sell? The question can finally be answered.The data was taken from the website gamrreview.com which gets its data from vgchartz.com. I know people say vgchartz isn't accurate but its the best we have since Bioware wont release sale figures. The PC sales are off considering most dont count digital sales.

Total sales of both games as of July 22nd:
DAO 3.79 million, .39 million PC
DA2 1.45 million, .29 million PC

A better comparison is the first ten weeks following launch of the games. DAO had already sold 2.5 million, and DA2 barely made half that.

Here in graph form.

There you go. Is the game a success as Bioware and EA claim it is? Whats your opinion?

— Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

Da2 sold fairly well during the first couple of weeks because it was a sequel to orgins. The mere name Dragon Age sold despite the bad user scores and average press reviews. Da2 was developped in less than 2 years. So even if it wasn't a massive hit like orgins, it wasn't a total failure either.

So Dragon age 2 didn't flop, but we all know how controversial the game's reception was and how cold it left older bioware fans. In the long term for a studio like bioware they can't addord to make games that make mere decent profit. They'll have to score big time with ME3 and swtor if they wish to keep making AAA-games.

It was probably a commercial success, but if the trends shown in the graphs are correct the alarm bells must be ringing at both Bio and EA. Their cunning plan failed miserable, they're damaged a strong brand instead.

This is weird.
If we can believe the general integrity of these graphs at least somewhat, it would ultimately be quite ironic that while the title has undoubtedly been "consolized" for greater accessibility to that particular market - the console sales for Origins was better and for DA2 was worse..
LOL

They still made a ton of money on it, I wouldnt consider it a financial fail, but as mentioned earlier in the thread - they lost respect from a lot of people w/ DA2. It wasnt by any means universally despised, but they lost some geek rep that's for sure w/ the cheap recycling and game padding tactics.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
This is weird.
If we can believe the general integrity of these graphs at least somewhat, it would ultimately be quite ironic that while the title has undoubtedly been "consolized" for greater accessibility to that particular market - the console sales for Origins was better and for DA2 was worse..
LOL

Yes I agree because if you go by what Bioware said the game was targeted for consoles more and it sold less than Origins. Though the PC sales remained the same you can see why the consoles get more attention.

Remember Bioware said something about 2 million shipped not sold. We will still get more dlc and a part 3 but there probably going to be more cautious next time. We know the next game will definitely be like DA2 though as they say its the series direction.

I could maybe see those PC numbers because more people are buying games digitally even vs a year or so prior and Steam pushed DA2, as they do with all new releases, when it came out. However, given the current situation between EA and Valve I don't think DA3 is likely to get a boost from Steam at all.

Obviously the console numbers (the ones they really care about) are lackluster so I think they got the message, even if they refuse to acknowledge that.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
This is weird.
If we can believe the general integrity of these graphs at least somewhat, it would ultimately be quite ironic that while the title has undoubtedly been "consolized" for greater accessibility to that particular market - the console sales for Origins was better and for DA2 was worse..
LOL

That would actually be normal, DAO wasn't liked on the console and most people who bought it didn't bother buying DA2 just because of that.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Did Bioware promote DA2 the way they pushed DA:O? I remember seeing many TV ads for DA:O, and I do not remember seeing a single one for DA2.

I am a sporadic TV watcher and very well may have missed them. But I don't remember seeing any ads at all for DA2. This could have something to do with sales, especially to a crowd not tuned in to the RPG/fantasy genre.

My guess is that Da2 was a huge succsess in the eyes of Ea as they probably spent less then 1/4 of Da:0's budget and saw about half of its returns.
I expect this sort of cashgrab to follow every future succsess of a Bioware franchise.

It would be nice if every ‘Collector’s Edition’ was the same, and all we needed to do was figure out which exclusive item worked best for our character, but of course life isn’t that simple. For example, neither GamersGate nor Impulse offer a special exclusive item, nor do they mention the Formari (memory) Ring as a bonus that was supposed to be included with all pre-orders. The pricing is universally the same at $64.99, i need cheats for dragonage if any one have please share it with me. Thanks..

Originally Posted by Ovenall
Did Bioware promote DA2 the way they pushed DA:O? I remember seeing many TV ads for DA:O, and I do not remember seeing a single one for DA2.

I am a sporadic TV watcher and very well may have missed them. But I don't remember seeing any ads at all for DA2. This could have something to do with sales, especially to a crowd not tuned in to the RPG/fantasy genre.

It's been a while, but I think they had a TV ad for DA2. At least there are copies out on YouTube. I also remember seeing some trailers for DA2 on some gaming web sites.

This was one of the last EA games released on Steam, in fact that's where I bought it.

As neither Steam nor Origin publicly disclose sales information, there is no way to know the number of PC digital download sales. Depending on how many people bought digital copies, the PC number should be significantly higher than what's listed on vgchartz.